


Unfolding

by Silvereye



Category: EOS 10 (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24495538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvereye/pseuds/Silvereye
Summary: David Maddox dates Ryan Dalias and no epic world-shattering events take place to derail it. Along the way Maddox learns more about Ryan's implant, has late-night conversations and discovers that security incident reports are surprisingly relevant to his personal life.Diverges from canon at the end of episode 401 "Who's Your Daddy".
Relationships: Ryan Dalias/David Maddox
Comments: 12
Kudos: 55





	Unfolding

**Author's Note:**

> As always, my greatest thanks to [hoarmurath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoarmurath/) who betas my fic for fandoms she isn't in (and also for fandoms she _is_ in). Any remaining typos are mine.

Maddox went and inspected the abandoned ship in Delta bay – or more precisely, waited until the specialists inspected it. He half-expected it to be a smuggler craft, full of little hiding places and various illegal substances. It wasn’t. Just a little ship that someone had forgotten.

Specialist Jones offered to do the full background check and thus most of the paperwork, since it was three in the morning and Maddox had been in a cage match against a robot a few hours before. Maddox wasn’t going to argue. He went back to Ryan’s place.

Ryan had fallen asleep, but only barely. He was hunched over his tablet and jerked awake when Maddox let himself in.

"Finished?" Ryan said, a little blearily, more awake with every passing second. "Anything horrible I should know?"

"Probably not. No bombs, no drugs, no biohazards."

"That’s nice." Ryan got to his feet, dropped the tablet on the table, scratched his neck. "So, uh... are we – that is, what happens now?"

"What do you want to happen?" Maddox asked carefully.

"I don’t know," Ryan said. "That is, I – I want to, uh, but the date didn’t exactly go as expected and I do have rounds tomorrow, even if Dr Urvidian said I could come in late and I – I really have no experience with..."

The first thing to know about Dr Ryan Dalias was that he started talking very fast when nervous. "Ryan," Maddox said. "May I kiss you?"

Ryan quietened. His eyes went very wide, and if possible, even more blue. "Yeah," he said. "We could start with that."

Maddox stepped closer, brushed his fingers over Ryan’s cheekbone. Ryan’s eyes fluttered shut. He sighed shakily. Maddox slid his fingers down Ryan’s cheek and tilted his own head up to kiss him. He was a little shorter than Ryan, although not by much.

Maddox kept it chaste, because three a.m. after a very long day and with a partner who had hardly kissed a man before… probably wasn’t the time to bring his A-game. Ryan made a little sound at the back of his throat nonetheless, sliding his arms around Maddox. His eyes were still closed, but it didn’t look like he was unenthusiastic.

Maddox pulled back a little, to ask: "You good?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "I really am."

"Still want me to stay for the night?"

"You’re a very good kisser," Ryan said, a note of amusement in his voice. "I do. But I don’t know if I want to... have sex tonight. It has been a long day."

"Okay," Maddox said. "So, does that sofa fold out or not?"

Ryan stared at him. "David," he said. "You’re not sleeping on the sofa. Unless, uh, is it too much to ask that you maybe come to my bed but not for the obvious…?" Ryan bit off the end of the sentence in frustration, the way he did when his brain was lagging behind his vocal cords.

"No," Maddox said. "That’ll be just fine."

It was in fact a little awkward. They had occasionally ended up in the swimming pool at the same time, but this was not the same. Maddox offered to turn his back while Ryan undressed. Ryan hummed and said that wasn’t necessary. He changed into a worn T-shirt with his old university’s logo on it. Maddox wondered if he should keep his own on, for modesty’s sake, but he hadn’t slept in a shirt for a better part of a decade.

"Is it too much?" he asked, sitting down on the bed.

"Nah," Ryan said, a faint blush on his cheeks. "It’s alright. Do you want to keep some of the lights on?"

"Just the emergency on half-strength." Maddox didn’t know Ryan’s quarters like he already knew his own. Too easy to get disoriented in the dark if anything happened.

Ryan’s bed was narrower than Maddox’, but still wide enough to easily fit them both. Maddox backed against the wall, leaving enough room for Ryan and then some. Ryan did not hesitate to come to bed, but neither did he close the distance. After a moment he slid his hand across the space in between. It was little more than an abstract shape in the near-dark. Maddox covered it with his own hand and felt Ryan’s long fingers flex under his.

Then, because he was incorrigible just like his old mother used to say, he asked: "Is this your first time in bed with a man?"

Ryan laughed quietly. "Commander Maddox, do you have a kink for first times?"

Maddox smiled. "I wouldn’t go as far as to call it a kink. But I like to be prepared."

"Huh." Ryan was silent for a while. "It actually isn’t. I was in the high school swim team. This one time we flew out to a competition and there was a major fuck-up with hotel reservations. So we had to double up. Most of the other guys played rock-paper-scissors to see who got the floor. Me and Joe shared. We figured that neither of us had a flailing problem and there was no use risking a cramp before the competition."

"That’s sensible."

"It really was. We won, you know."

"I wouldn’t have guessed otherwise."

"What was yours?" Ryan asked.

Maddox had seen Ryan step out of the way, all grace and perfect timing, when Lieutenant Commander Johns was sprinting towards him for some or other reason. This question felt similar. It did not really matter, though. Dodge or not, Maddox could answer the question.

"My first boyfriend," he said. "Back in high school. His parents allowed me to stay overnight and I sure wasn’t going to ask whether I should sleep on the sofa if they didn’t specify. We didn’t get as much sleep as you did, though."

"Is that so?" Ryan asked.

"Necking until four in the morning," Maddox said solemnly.

Ryan laughed. "It actually might be four a.m. by now."

"Half past three, probably. Do you want to go to sleep?"

Ryan shrugged. "Seems like a waste. But..."

"Any objections to cuddling?" Maddox offered.

"Dibs on being the big spoon."

Maddox could live with that. In fact, he might have died and gone to heaven. He turned his back and heard the sigh of the sheets when Ryan inched closer and finally put an arm around Maddox, leaving a surgical half-inch of space between them. It was fairly tame, as cuddling went, but Maddox sure wasn’t going to complain. He interlaced his fingers with Ryan’s and fell asleep in record time.

#

Lieutenant Commander Johns insisted they had to go out for "we definitely owned that robot" drinks the next evening. It was a fairly interesting situation, given that she herself waggled her eyebrows at Ryan every moment she could, Doctor Urvidian had apparently returned to hardline sobriety and Levi was convinced he was dying yet again.

"For the last time, Levi, you don’t have the necessary cell structures for Kikuchi’s myelitis," Ryan said. "Stop letting the Interface diagnose you."

"But – "

"I went to med school. The Interface did not, smart as she is. You are not dying."

"I see," Levi said. "I suppose I should defer to your superior knowledge this time."

Ryan sighed and took a long drink from his glass. It was something acidly green and completely horrifying, even if Maddox had only heard half of the ingredients list. Who put absinthe _and_ mango syrup _and_ lime in the same cocktail?

Someone who had a little robot in their brain, perhaps. Maddox still didn’t know what the thing actually was, but Ryan had made it very clear that it made him physically incapable of being drunk. Maybe disintegrating your taste buds was the only thing left after inebriation got scratched off the list.

Ryan still looked exhausted. It wasn’t surprising. He’d had a long day after a short night. Maddox was nonetheless struck by the realization that he’d never seen Ryan _not_ tired.

This, too, made sense. Maddox hadn’t been on the station for long and during that time Ryan had had to deal with two separate paternal surprises, one cage fight and whatever it was he had done when he went on his highly unscheduled little trip. It would tire anyone. And yet.

They left roughly when Jane – Maddox had tried to call her Lieutenant Commander and it did not go over that well – and Levi started dancing on a table. Not theirs, which made slipping away all the easier. Doctor Urvidian raised his glass of mineral water at them, Ryan made a face and off they were.

"I expected worse," Maddox remarked when they were a safe distance away. "All that talk about baseline chaotic..."

"They only got started," Ryan said dryly. "As far as I can tell they’re immune to hangovers, so they don’t have to pace themselves. Someone will get arrested there tonight. Several people, probably."

"I’ll be sure to count them tomorrow morning."

“Ten creds say there’ll be more than four."

“I wouldn’t dare to bet against you."

“That’s fair." They were at the door to Ryan’s quarters. Ryan looked down. “So."

“You don’t have to invite me in," Maddox said.

Ryan smiled, a fleeting fragile thing. “Yeah. I know. And… thanks for the last night." He stepped closer to kiss Maddox, almost chastely, then let go of his hand. “See you tomorrow. Good night."

#

Maddox went home. He dutifully drank two glasses of water to stave off any possibility of hangover, then checked the security logs. Nothing. The station had not explosively decompressed and no one had been arrested in the last couple of hours. That only really left one thing to do, other than going to sleep.

Interface could have given him the summary, of course, but he liked researching things all by himself. It was a rare treat, because on the job the analysts could do any research thrice as fast as he and in his off-hours he rarely had to go past the Interface summary. This, however, wasn’t something for the analysts. Or something he could blithely ask the Interface.

He didn’t know what it was. Not an investigation. Not an everyday case. He had very little idea what he was doing, but he had to _know_.

Maddox gingerly searched “brain implant inebriation prevention".

After a little while he searched “brain implant neuromodulation". Not quite the search he wanted to do, but “brain implant addiction" really would have been prying.

Then “neuromodulation side effects".

Then “neuromodulation side effect anhedonia".

Then he shut down his tablet, stared at the ceiling and said: “Well, _fuck_."

#

The little robot in Ryan’s brain wasn’t in any of his official files. Maddox had been briefed on those before he arrived on Eos 10, so re-reading them did not feel entirely intrusive. The implant might have been in Ryan’s medicals, but those were likely only accessible to Ryan himself and whoever was authorized to care for him.

It was much easier to spot the signs once Maddox knew what to look for. Ryan was always a little tired. Always irritable, especially for someone who was the Chief of Surgery for an entire space station and had the stress tolerance to match. Often amused, but rarely happy. None of those things would have signified on their own, but taken all together and combined with the bleak snippets Ryan had offered…

Maddox didn’t like to think of it.

It was hard not to. Especially when his mind started gnawing on the ugly question: whose idea had it been? Ryan could have made the implant disappear from his records. Would have had every right to do so, given how sensitive a piece of information it was. But Maddox had worked in security long enough to know that Ryan’s civvie history file would have had oblique hints as to _why_ he would have needed the implant. There were none. Ryan could not have wiped that one – not thoroughly enough.

The clearance hierarchy was an awful thing. Every intelligence unit Maddox had ever bumped into had had an officer who dealt with the nice official clearance rules, and the gnarly exceptions to them, and the even gnarlier exceptions to _those_ , and the smartasses who thought they could fake an exception to access something they shouldn’t’ve. Maddox was aware he wasn’t a clearance specialist. He was still pretty certain that a Chief of Surgery could not block out a Chief of Security so thoroughly that Maddox wouldn’t notice.

Ryan’s legal father had been an Admiral. Clearance enough to hide pretty much anything from anyone, including Maddox. Given the recent events, Maddox guessed the man had a penchant for extreme measures.

Maddox had to ask Ryan. At this point anything else would have been dishonest. He really, really did not want to, though.

#

“I must ask you something," Maddox said. They were in his quarters. He had made dinner – grilled sandwiches and hot chocolate for dessert, anyway. A little sneering voice in his head asked: _preemptive apology?_

“Sure," Ryan said, slouched on Maddox’ sofa, on his way to carb coma.

Maddox drew a breath. “The implant in your head is making you pretty much clinically depressed. Am I right?"

Ryan startled, then pressed his lips together and sat up straighter. “Why do you ask?"

“You said it beat to death everything fun that came in your head. I wanted to know what it meant. And… I figured it was more polite to do a little research by myself than to blunder in asking obvious questions. The same way you haven’t asked about my home planet."

Ryan looked down and away. “I guess." He came to a decision, sighed and patted the sofa beside himself. “Sit down. I’ll get a crick in my neck otherwise."

Maddox sat down and faced the fake window, same as Ryan. This way, it didn’t quite feel like an interrogation.

Ryan inhaled, then sighed again and looked at his hands. He had never looked as much in need of a hug, but Maddox couldn’t have hugged him right then. Too wrong. Maddox had started it.

“To answer the question you didn’t ask: addiction," Ryan said, pinched and unhappy. “I jumped off something I really shouldn’t have when I was younger. Had to have my spine replaced. Got the very nicest painkillers and didn’t stop taking them when I was released from the hospital, or when I was supposed to switch to lighter ones, or – well. It got really bad for a while and didn’t get better, so..." he made a little jerky motion towards his head.

It made perfect sense. Maddox had seen the something similar happen to fellow soldiers way back when he was only a newly-minted adult in the Navy. Had Ryan been any older?

“I’m sorry," Maddox said.

Ryan was quiet for a second. “Thanks. To answer the question you did ask: mostly not. I’m not suicidal, my executive function is fine and most days I don’t hate myself more than the average person. It’s only that, if I consume something it thinks I shouldn’t – alcohol, pretty much any fun drug, opioids, lots of painkiller types really – the implant shuts it down chemically. But there’s always a possibility I find a drug it doesn’t recognize. So when I get too happy too suddenly…" He shrugged. “Down to the baseline, just in case."

“It shuts you down when you’re happy?" Maddox asked.

Ryan blinked at him, as if he had yelled. Had he? “Well," Ryan said. “Sometimes."

“That’s _awful_ ," Maddox said.

Ryan looked away again, his face like winter. “Beats the other option." When Maddox didn’t say anything Ryan continued: “I went to rehab several times and fell off the wagon every time. I can trust an implant when I can’t trust my own willpower. You saw me last week – the second thing I thought of when I learned Dr Urvidian was my father was to try to get blackout drunk."

The first had been hanging off a ledge, literally. Maddox had thought it was the kind of dramatic gesture most everyone in Eos 10 seemed to be partial to. He wasn’t so sure now.

“It still sounds like overkill," Maddox said, carefully.

“Not by much." Ryan looked at him, with an odd twist to his mouth and his head tilted. “You think my – Admiral Dalias made me get it?"

“The thought did cross my mind. He seems like a man who would be concerned about appearances."

Ryan shook his head. “No. Not that. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an awful genocidal maniac of a human being and for most of my life I thought he was perpetually disappointed in me." The twist of his mouth became a terrible mirthless smile. “In his frankly horrifying way he cares, though. Must have back then, too.

He did bring up the idea at first. But I read the brochures, I read the goddamn scholarly lit reviews and when I signed the forms I knew exactly what they meant. I don’t know if you’ve ever known you cannot trust yourself. I hope you haven’t, because I remember and I would make the same choice now. I _hated_ myself back then. And the problem with Admiral Dalias is that he has done so many things so fucking wrong that I – it would be unfair to hate him for every single thing that has gone wrong in my life. So I –" He pressed his lips together to stop the increasingly tumbled flow of words, then said flatly: “It was my choice. You have to believe that."

“Okay," Maddox said. “I believe you."

“Thanks," Ryan said.

“More hot chocolate?" Maddox said.

“Yeah."

#

“I’ve done an awful lot of prying," Maddox said when they were abed that evening. “Seems kind of unfair."

“It’s okay," Ryan said. He sounded wide awake in the dark. “I get it."

“Still not fair." Maddox sighed, turned to his side. “Honesty hour in the other direction. Ask me anything."

“And you’ll answer if it’s not too classified?" Ryan asked, amused.

“Precisely."

“How did you end up in the Navy? I figured it probably..." he made some gesture Maddox couldn’t see, only feel in the slight movement of the air.

“Had something to do with Obsidian Prime?" Maddox breathed in and prodded at his memories of his home planet. It hurt less than he expected it to. “Yeah. It was the most structured job I could think of. Back then I wanted to be a cog in a machine and Navy was the best oiled machine of them all."

Ryan was quiet.

“It’s strange, I know. I was twelve when it happened. Afterwards, I was less a person and more a number in the system. I should have wanted to become _anything_ but a cog in the machine. But it’s..." Maddox searched for the words. “I wanted to be part of the process, not the processed. Although that makes it sound worse than the miracle it was. There were millions of us after the disaster, bereft of everything and in the end we were cared for."

“Something can be both logistically wonderful and personally devastating," Ryan said. He hesitated. “Did you lose anyone? People, I mean."

Maddox exhaled, inhaled again and said evenly: “My father and my brothers in the quake. My mother died later." It did hurt to say it, but no more than it had in the last couple of years. Everything scarred over eventually.

Ryan was quiet, and so Maddox said: “It’s one of the reasons I usually use my family name over my first. There are enough Davids, but I am all the brothers of my father’s house. Et cetera."

“I’m sorry."

“It happened a long time ago."

Ryan stretched out his hand, slid his fingers over Maddox’ cheek. Whether he was checking for tears or trying for comfort, Maddox could not tell. “Doesn’t seem like it matters, with things like these."

“Probably not." Maddox kissed Ryan’s fingertips. “I wonder sometimes if it broke me in some way I haven’t been able to figure out. To use your own phrase, I’m remarkably well-adjusted, all things considered."

“Some people are more resilient." Ryan hesitated, edged closer. “I’m still sorry it happened to you."

“Thanks," Maddox whispered.

“Is this..." Ryan swallowed. “Er. Forget I said anything."

“Ask it."

“Do you think… this might be why you like to be a stabilizing influence?" Ryan fussed with the blanket. “This is a horrible question. Forget I asked it. Sorry."

Maddox smiled in the dark. “It’s a fair enough question. And a pretty good guess, but – it’s not only what happened to Obsidian Prime. I’ve always been like that, even before the disaster. I like it." He chuckled. “I’m going to sound like I’m evil, but there’s something nice about being the person everyone can rely on."

“All that sweet dependence?" Ryan said dryly.

“That’s a very villainous wording."

“It’s the thought that matters."

#

The day after there was an incident featuring an exotic animals trader with a cavalier attitude to securing his cargo and much excitement in Gamma bay. No one died. That was the best that could be said.

When the excitement had died down and all the wounded had been carted off to surgery, Maddox sighed and went to the promenade. He was going to be up until the small hours of the morning with this paperwork, so getting something cheap and unhealthy for dinner and the _second_ dinner was only prudent. Fortunately nothing could inhibit Eos 10 for long, so he had his pick of food joints.

Maddox wrote a quick message to Ryan – although Ryan was in all likelitude also busy for the rest of the day and probably wouldn’t get to the message any time soon – and then settled in his office with the burgers and the reports that were already trickling in from the rest of Security.

By midnight it seemed clear that this had been a preventable disaster. There had been enough indications that the trader was incautious and possibly should not have been allowed to dock with the station at all. But only in aggregate. Every single variable that Docking or the Interface or Maddox’s own Security monitored had come in clean enough, so nothing tripped an alarm.

They were going to have to tweak the docking procedure again. Maddox had been on Eos 10 long enough to know that Docking routinely managed chaos that would have made seasoned logistics officers shiver. These people would not like tweaks to their procedure, but then, they probably liked rampaging cargo even less.

Luckily, Maddox was not the one who had to annoy Docking into figuring out the changes to the procedure. He had analysts enough under his command. Security analysts were _wonderful_ at explaining to other people that it was a choice between fixing the procedure or having the next problem be worse and unscheduled.

He saved his reports, checked the logs (no explosive decompression so far), checked his private messages (a very short one from Ryan: “falling asleep rn, dinner tomorrow?") and called it a night.

#

“We get cases like this in Surgery," Ryan said when Maddox finished explaining the trader incident. “No symptom is conclusive enough but the patient is obviously not doing well. I hate those."

They were in a little café Maddox hadn’t yet visited. He wouldn’t have found it on his own, which definitely would have been a pity. The pastitsio was wonderful.

“How do you manage them?" he asked.

“Expertise, I guess. You kind of get a feeling that when the patient has weird symptoms A to D you should look for completely unrelated Z. Urvidian is the best at those."

“Pity we can’t suggest that to Docking as a solution. We understand you need clear procedure and red flags to look at, but you could just use your expertise to figure out which ships need extra checks."

Ryan laughed, muffling it with one hand, shoulders shaking. He calmed a little, glanced at Maddox, said: “You’re looking very close."

“You’re very cute when you’re laughing," Maddox said.

Ryan hummed and didn’t say anything at that. He did keep smiling.

Maddox didn’t catch the name of the dessert, but it was a deep fried pastry, soaked in syrup and dusted with cinnamon. They were delicious, if rather sticky. Maddox tried and failed at keeping the syrup at least somewhat contained. Ryan somehow sidestepped that problem and watched Maddox’ attempts at avoiding syrup with a fond smile.

“We have to come back here," he said. “So you could practice your dexterity."

“I am very dextrous," Maddox said, but then lost whatever he was going to say next, because Ryan was licking cinnamon off his fingertips.

“Do you want coffee?" Ryan asked, evidently unaware of what he had just done.

“Yeah, sure," Maddox said. “The servers seem to be at the back, but..."

“No," Ryan said steadily. He held Maddox’ gaze. “I was thinking we could go to your place."

“For coffee."

“For coffee, Ryan repeated, then quirked his eyebrow in a way that was eerily reminiscent of Jane. “And then we’ll see."

#

“That’s a really nice coffee machine," Ryan remarked when they were standing in Maddox’ kitchen. “Perks of being the Chief of Security?"

“No, I ordered it with my own money. We had a good coffee maker in the officer’s mess in my last posting and I couldn’t stand the thought of going back to luck-of-the-draw station coffee after that. You wouldn’t believe the stuff I’ve seen in relay stations."

“Boiled in an old boot?"

“Something like it." He gestured with the pot of coffee. “Do you want it straight?"

“I’d rather not. It’s nine in the evening and my caffeine tolerance has gone down after med school."

Maddox’ caffeine tolerance had steadily climbed up throughout his life, so the exact time did not matter much to him. But he had some milk left, from his last dinner with Ryan, and it seemed to be in decent condition still. He poured them two cups of coffee, watched Ryan examine the cup – a well-worn mug that had originally come from a Navy gift shop as a joke – and then drink. The movement of his Adam’s apple was mesmerizing. Maddox was, apparently, sixteen again.

Ryan looked at him. He put the cup down on the counter and said quietly: “We are a bit past straight, aren’t we?"

Maddox swallowed his first answer, which would have been “I’ve never been straight at all". He could avoid being incorrigible. Occasionally. Instead, he said: “What do you want?"

Ryan stepped a little closer, took Maddox’ own coffee cup, set it beside his own, then closed the distance between them. Maddox was bracketed between Ryan’s arms, the small of his back against the edge of the counter, but Ryan was leaning forward so that Maddox didn’t have to look up at him.

Ryan kissed him, deeply, with no hesitation at all. Then he drew back a little, and said: “I want you."

“That can be arranged," Maddox breathed. “But not in the kitchen, when I have a very good bed. Or a sofa. Whichever you’d like."

Ryan took his hand and led him to the bed in question. Maddox sat down on the edge of it, expecting Ryan to sit beside him. Ryan, however, was not doing things by halves. He sat in Maddox’ lap, straddling him. He didn’t brush against Maddox’ erection. Maddox didn’t know whether it was by design or not.

“I have been skittish," Ryan said. “It’s – most of my recent relationships have been kind of weird. I had forgotten how to date anyone properly, and then you were such a stable person that I got afraid. I really am a trainwreck, even if you don’t agree."

Maddox started to say something. Ryan put a finger to his lips to quieten him.

“But then," Ryan continued. “Then you learned more about my implant and your first question was _whether it was making me depressed_. I told you exactly what it was for and you didn’t flinch. And then you did the honesty hour thing, because you thought _you’d_ been unfair." He caught his breath, looked down, then up through his lashes. “So I trust you. And I want you, but I actually have no idea what I’m doing."

Maddox kissed him briefly. “Looks like you have a pretty good idea."

“I’m not a virgin. But. You know."

“I have been thinking," Maddox said quietly, “about this trader incident."

Ryan blinked.

“Maddox, I do find your line of work interesting, but I don’t think it’s sexy," he said.

“It isn’t," Maddox agreed. “But you said your little robot shuts you down when you’re too happy. I’m assuming it’s not too careful about the exact cause."

Ryan looked away and shrugged. “Sometimes. It doesn’t switch off the physical response, if that helps."

“Well. The trader got into the station because it ran under the wire on all checks. So I was thinking..."

Ryan got it in a heartbeat. “If we’re slow enough we don’t trip it?"

“Precisely."

Ryan looked at him with those wide blue eyes. Then he kissed Maddox as if there was nothing else in the world.

Ryan didn’t waste too much time before unbuttoning his shirt. Maddox had seen him without one before, but it was a sight to behold every time. He drew his fingertips down from Ryan’s shoulders to his waist, and when Ryan’s hips jerked forward, he caught them in his hands and kissed Ryan’s throat.

“Not yet," he whispered. He kissed the side of Ryan’s neck, just under his ear.

Ryan frowned a little at that. Maddox drew back and waited.

“Most of my neck is prosthetic," Ryan said. “From that time I had to have my spine replaced. It was – well, anyway, I don’t have much feeling there. But the front of my neck isn’t."

“Okay," Maddox said, and pressed a kiss to the hollow between Ryan’s collarbones. “I can work with that."

He could. He kissed Ryan until it looked like Ryan could not stand it for a moment more, and then he laid Ryan down on the bed and got off his pants. Ryan made a vague swipe towards Maddox’s own waistband. Maddox caught his hand and kissed the inside of his wrist.

“Later," Maddox said. “You’re going to come first."

“Or so help you?" Ryan grumbled, half-amused.

“Or so help me," Maddox agreed, pressing his lips to Ryan’s hipbone.

He did miscalculate the tempo a bit. Ryan came when Maddox had barely got him in his mouth, with little more warning than a sharp jerk of his hips and a quiet strangled sound in his throat. Maddox swallowed, let go, looked up.

“Did it..." he asked. Had it worked?

Ryan nodded, breathless.

Maddox smiled and lay down by Ryan’s side. He traced a line down Ryan’s arm, from shoulder to wrist and asked: “Are you… alright?"

Ryan looked at him. Blinked. Blinked again. “Yeah," he said, dryly amused. “You could say that." Then he unbuttoned Maddox’ jeans with surgical precision, slid his hand in Maddox’ boxers and Maddox couldn’t help but gasp.

Ryan stroked him, slowly and a little uncertainly, but with a degree of unwavering attention Maddox did not often merit. Maddox wanted to bury his face in Ryan’s neck, to quieten the sounds he was making, to be closer – but that wasn’t what Ryan deserved, so he settled one hand on Ryan’s hip and let him see everything.

“You’re looking awfully close," he said afterwards.

“Do you have any idea how good you just looked?" Ryan said.

Maddox hummed. “Some. I can guess by your expression."

“Well then," Ryan said and rested his head on Maddox’ shoulder. He was quiet for so long that Maddox thought he had fallen asleep. Then Ryan smiled. “Congrats for us. We definitely owned that robot."


End file.
